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What To Say When the Police Tell You To Stop Filming Them
HughPickens.com writes: Robinson Meyer writes in The Atlantic that first of all, police shouldn't ask. "As a basic principle, we can't tell you to stop recording," says Delroy Burton, a 21-year veteran of DC's police force. "If you're standing across the street videotaping, and I'm in a public place, carrying out my public functions, [then] I'm subject to recording, and there's nothing legally the police officer can do to stop you from recording." What you don't have a right to do is interfere with an officer's work. ""Police officers may legitimately order citizens to cease activities that are truly interfering with legitimate law enforcement operations," according to Jay Stanley who wrote the ACLU's "Know Your Rights" guide for photographers, which lays out in plain language the legal protections that are assured people filming in public. Police officers may not confiscate or demand to view your digital photographs or video without a warrant and police may not delete your photographs or video under any circumstances.
What if an officer says you are interfering with legitimate law enforcement operations and you disagree with the officer? "If it were me, and an officer came up and said, 'You need to turn that camera off, sir,' I would strive to calmly and politely yet firmly remind the officer of my rights while continuing to record the interaction, and not turn the camera off," says Stanley. The ACLU guide also supplies the one question those stopped for taking photos or video may ask an officer: "The right question to ask is, 'am I free to go?' If the officer says no, then you are being detained, something that under the law an officer cannot do without reasonable suspicion that you have or are about to commit a crime or are in the process of doing so. Until you ask to leave, your being stopped is considered voluntary under the law and is legal."
What if an officer says you are interfering with legitimate law enforcement operations and you disagree with the officer? "If it were me, and an officer came up and said, 'You need to turn that camera off, sir,' I would strive to calmly and politely yet firmly remind the officer of my rights while continuing to record the interaction, and not turn the camera off," says Stanley. The ACLU guide also supplies the one question those stopped for taking photos or video may ask an officer: "The right question to ask is, 'am I free to go?' If the officer says no, then you are being detained, something that under the law an officer cannot do without reasonable suspicion that you have or are about to commit a crime or are in the process of doing so. Until you ask to leave, your being stopped is considered voluntary under the law and is legal."
"If it were me, and an officer came up and said, 'You need to turn that camera off, sir,' I would strive to calmly and politely yet firmly remind the officer of my rights while continuing to record the interaction, and not turn the camera off," says Stanley.
And if it were me, I would think twice or thrice about getting on the bad side of the local police department, being arrested (and who knows what else). Of course I would be vindicated, but that can occur after I spent some time in jail, got charged with some bullshit, spent who knows how much money on laywers and called ACLU for help...
I mean, look -- there were a bunch of recent stories with suspects getting killed or beaten, and if one is lucky, the police is charged afterwards. Sometimes not even that. Basically, most of us cannot afford to stand on principle. Many have family to support or career to preserve, or both.
"The right question to ask is, 'am I free to go?'"
Are you not sort of expected to leave if you ask if you're free to go? I don't want to leave, I want to continue doing the legal thing that I'm doing.
Where I'm from if you backtalk a cop, they take you to jail (if you're lucky they don't beat you for "resisting arrest" too). They make up some charges after-the-fact. Or maybe there are no charges and they let you go after 48 hours of sharing a cell with crackheads. Either way, the lesson is "don't backtalk."
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
This whole problem will go away when recording devices become so small that police will not know who is filming them and who is not. Eyeglasses? Could be a camera. Contact lenses? Camera? Glass eye? Camera. Third button down on the shirt? Camera.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
You say, "ok officer" but keep filming them from your waist level, or from a distance. Honestly, get a frigging telephoto lens for your phone or carry a good video camera where you can be far enough away so you are not noticed.
People need to be recording the police all the time and posting it all in public places. Cops need a strong light on them at all times, they need to be afraid of the public, and afraid of not being professional in public.
I also say we need to film them when off duty, rat on the fucking scum cops that speed and violate laws.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Of course, if you get the camera slapped out of your hand while being tazed and the officer then claims you assaulted him who's gonna film it?
Just how many cops have behaved inappropriately and have remained on the force. How many messed up or plainly did wrong and are still earning your tax dollar?
Idealistic talk is nice...facts on the ground is another thing.
Land of the free...yeah right.
A 'singular oddity' is an event that cannot be explained and only happens when you are alone.
Check out "Filming Cops" and "Cop Block". They've been advocating and doing this for years and facing violence and intimidation from the police as a result.
Yes, it's definitely easy to say and hard to do, but people ARE doing it. Just know that you have every right to film the cops in public and if they try to stop you, they are in the wrong. You might even get lucky and get a payday out of it.
It's funny. For years, people on the Cop Block message boards have been criticizing people who were actively filming police. They were saying that it wouldn't change anything. Now the tide is turning. Too bad that the "racism" thing had to enter the picture when cops have been brutalizing people of all races, but if that's what it takes to raise awareness, so be it.
I tried to use my tablet to take a picture of the new American Embassy building outside Vientiane, Laos. I was told by the guards that this is prohibited. I went out to the street and took a picture from a public road on Lao territory, but they again told me to delete the picture. I figure they had no right to prohibit the picture, but I deleted it anyway. Then they had the paradox that they were insisting that I delete the picture, but they could not touch my tablet and I could not delete the picture because it was already gone.
So two days later, while I was in a taxi driving from downtown Vientiane to the Thai bridge, I pulled out my tablet and shot a video as we went past the new Embassy building. As soon as I got home I posted the video on my web site at
http://www.andycanfield.com/Th...
So far the idiots in the U.S. State Department haven't contacted me. Is it an act of treason for you to look at it? Ask your lawyer.
The summary isn't quite right. A warrant would not be required to seize your phone or other recording device if the officer has probable cause to believe it contains evidence of a crime (and exigent circumstances exist, which they probably do). Then he can try to get a warrant to get that evidence off your device. An example would be they roll up on a crime scene and you were recording before they got there, or, maybe you got video of the suspect assaulting the police. They wouldn't need a warrant to seize it at that point, because exigent circumstances (you could leave, the evidence could easily be destroyed if they don't secure the phone) would justify seizure without a warrant. However they could not legally search it without a warrant. (Typically in a case where a bystander has video of the crime they'll be cooperative and send the video to the police if possible, or give consent to them to get it off their device).
The smarter police aren't going to go around taking phones. If they believe you have evidence on your phone they'd probably like to talk to you about what you saw anyway and ripping your phone out of your hands isn't going to help that. But just be aware that they can most likely legally seize your phone without a warrant, if they have probable cause it has evidence of a crime, and if seizing your phone is the only way to preserve that evidence from being destroyed or lost (you could delete the video or walk away before a warrant could be obtained).
What?
Remember, Freddie Gray was stopped by police, who later killed him just for eyeballing them.
If you want to play on-the-spot eyewitness news reporter with your cell phone, you should try your best to have white skin.
You are welcome on my lawn.
The solution is simple:
Pass the following laws: 1) Prosecutors can not prosecute or even investigate accusations of legal crimes by police that they may in the future have to work with. Instead, each state should set up an "Internal Affairs Office of Prosecution", whose sole job is to prosecute police and similar law enforcement officers. They will be judged on how many convictions they get, and only the best will be allowed to become managers.
2) After rule #1 has been in place for at least 5 years, require every one appointed to be a Judge to have previously successfully prosecuted at least one police officer.
This system attempts to counter the natural prejudice prosecutors and judges have in favor of the police while at the same time creates a strong motivation within the government to prosecute their own.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
The "Hands Up" app ( http://www.handsuptheapp.com/ ) has just been released and is designed to deal with these issues. It's quite clever and records the your interaction with the police as usual, but also:
- Turns the screen blank but keeps recording;
- Automatically uploads geotagged video segments to Dropbox every few seconds, preserving the recording even if it's erased or the phone is destroyed; and,
- Sends a text message to your emergency contact notifying them of the recording's existence.
No. Well...maybe. Actually, yes. It really just depends.
When an officer of the law (which implies "officer of the law-courts") tells you to do something you, as a citizen under the law, must comply.
If you do not comply, then the officer has the right and obligation to clear you from the area by whatever means necessary.
Tell that to Rosa Parks.
if you want to see what all the fuss is about, go to photographyisnotacrime.com
"Grab them by the pussy" -- President of the United States of America
I think the question people need to start asking themselves, first, is WHY they're filming in the first place.
I'm a photographer. My answer to that question is - so I don't face 10-20 years in jail on falsified charges made by an officer in retaliation for my recording - or just because I was nearby with a professional camera.
Assaulting photographers simply for recording is a crime. Falsifying charges against a photographer is a crime. Destroying a photographers (often extremely expensive) equipment is a crime. Those things became so common, so pervasive that holding a professional camera near an officer was known to be dangerous.
Some news photographers began filming each other so they'd have evidence when they were arrested on false charges. In some areas, the illegal assaults and false arrests escalated.
That's escalation pissed off otherwise disinterested people enough that they'll record just to preserve the right to record. Departments and cities backed the officers actions, so civil lawsuits followed. Repeated losses in civil lawsuits over false arrest didn't stop the behavior. It became so pervasive that courts are sometimes stripping officers of qualified immunity. (see Glik v. Cunniffe for a case where that was upheld all the way to the Federal court of appeals) Interfering this way is a violation of the 1st and 4th amendments, and that's very settled case law.
Simply, if officers stop assaulting and arresting photographers merely for recording, they won't have a problem. If 'showing up' is all it takes to catch you breaking the law, perhaps the problem is you.
1) The problem I see with the "Am I free to go?" question is that in all of the recorded interactions I have seen, the police officer more often than not just ignores the question.
Police: "Sir, can you tell me your address?" ...and so on. Eventually the police officer will either concede the person is free to go, or will call for assistance.
Citizen: "Am I free to go?"
Police: "Sir, I need your address so I know if you should be on this street."
Citizen: "Am I free to go?"
Police: "Sir, do you live on this street or not?"
2) For all of the talk about "99.6% of officers do not abuse their power", I have a problem when 99.6% of officers willingly choose to cover for the 0.4% that abuse their power. In my mind, that means that the 99.6% are also guilty of abusing their power, this time by not investigating and arresting criminals - in this case their coworkers.
If a big city police department was found to completely ignore the crimes of another subset of the population, that would be described as a corrupt police department. The fact that the subset in this question is the very same police department should not make a difference.
3) I am always confused by the "Let the investigation run its course, do not give in to the demands for immediate justice" calls that follow incidents of police brutality caught on tape. If someone records me shooting someone as they are running away from me, you had better believe I would be arrested as soon as the police located me. Putting me on paid leave for a few weeks while they "investigate"?
4) As was seen in the Baltimore riots and countless other major protests before, the police, as a department-wide policy, have no problem locking people up for 24-48 hours and then releasing them without charging them with anything.
The few people that are charged are caught in the catch-22 of being charged with resisting arrest, but no other crime. Their only crime was verbally and/or physically trying to prevent an officer from handcuffing them when the protestor was not doing anything illegal in the first place.
5) At what point do we start holding North Carolina officers responsible when they unconstitutionally pull people over for a burned-out rear tail light? NC law only requires a single "stop lamp" on the rear of a car. The Walter Scott incident should have never happened, as it is reasonable for NC officers to know by now that NC law has held being pulled over for only a failed brake light is unconstitutional.
- (c) 2018 Hank Zimmerman
And if the officer falls for it, then it proves that he was in fact bad! It is quite literally the police's job to deal with asshats, and to deal with them appropriately, fairly, and with care to respect their civil rights. If the officer fails to do that, then he deserves to look bad.
Of course, if arresting the person doing the filming is genuinely justified, then when the public sees the video they'll agree the officer was being reasonable and it'll make the person doing the filming look bad, not the officer.
Boo fucking hoo. Being accountable is part of the job. Cop doesn't like it? Then he should turn in his damn badge and GTFO!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz